A Voyage Of Self-discovery: Personal Journey Heads To Completion

HAMPTON — A 30,000-mile ocean expedition of research and self-discovery has its roots at Walden Pond.

The book is stowed on the starboard side of the Wildlife, and John Frederick Thye asks if you want to see it.

Don't bother.

He recites:

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."

He comes by the spirit of Henry David Thoreau honestly, having prepped in Corcord, Mass., before going on to Cornell to study engineering. But Thye' woods are the world's seas, and his home is no cabin in a New England forest, but one on a 47-foot catamaran that sails out of Hampton today, weather permitting.

Thye's pond is no "Walden,'' but is instead 30,000 miles of ocean, sailed for research under the auspices of the Wildlife Conservation Society.

It's been a voyage of self-discovery since the Wildlife set sail from Conet Plage, France, on Nov. 16, 2002. Along the way, Thye -- with boyhood friend Daniel Michahelles as mate for most of the trip -- accomplished a personal quest, with only the final leg to his New York home left to log.

"My goal was to find out what I was made of," says Thye, 31. "For me, I just kind of grew up in this very protective environment where I was taking a lot of wonderful things for granted. ... I felt I needed to get back to the basics to go about life and find value to learn what life is all about."

In this case, life is about riding out 72-knot winds at anchor in Argentina in preparation to round Cape Horn. It's about sailing in hurricane-force gales between Chile and Easter Island, in seas three-quarters as tall as the 72-foot mast they are measured against. It's about a rogue wave nearly swamping the catamaran, and about giving men in a canoe in Brazil their first wine and their first coins, and receiving fish and shrimp in exchange.

It's about studying coral reefs in Fiji and turtles in Nicaragua and Great White Sharks in Australia.

And it's about realizing a dream of a youth spent mostly in hospitals.

The son of a German father and American mother, Thye lived in Hamburg until he was 14, watching next-door neighbor Michahelles play soccer and field hockey and lacrosse, then later baseball. The view was from a distance, because Thye was born with a left leg shorter than his right, and with a hip that refused to do what it was designed to do.

Operation after operation left time for his mind to wander.

"I thought, 'Before I settle down, I really want to see the world by my own hand, on a boat that travels by sea, by the wind,' '' he says in precise English slightly accented with German.

After moving to the U.S., first to Massachusetts, then to New York, he began to sail lasers, then a 25-foot catamaran. Then the dream took off.

"I knew I needed big-boat experience, and in the '90s I got involved with some race teams up there," he says of New England. "In the Newport-to-Bermuda race, we had a guy who got his finger ripped off in a sheave (a pulley wheel on which a line is wrapped). His finger got mixed up in there and ripped off. It landed right next to my foot. It's the reality of what can happen quickly if you don't pay attention to a sailboat."

Thye didn't tell Michahelles that story in recruiting him for the voyage.

"I heard about that a few months later when I was close to a situation where I could have done something wrong," Michahelles says, laughing. "He said, 'Listen, I've got to tell you something here. This is what could happen.' ''

Michahelles listened and learned.

He has served as chronicler of the trip -- "like Antonio Pigafeta to Magellan," says Thye -- and stood six-hour watches, once he learned how.

"I was sort of taken by surprised," Michahelles says of the invitation. "I've known JF for 25 years. He came up to me and said, 'I need somebody to sail a boat with me. Would you consider it?' I said, 'Whoa. I don't have a license. I don't know much about sailing a boat. You put a lot of trust into me, right?' And he said, 'You will learn.' "

"So I joined and I'm happy that I joined. It's been the experience of a lifetime."

Part of the experience was the enjoyment of learning about new places. Part of it was fear when the rogue wave knocked the Wildlife about on his watch.

Much of it has been the bonding of two men who have known each other since they were boys. They have been joined at various times by others, including scientists and would-be adventurers.

Oh, and Yoga teacher Kate Hagerman, whose magazine-cover picture is on the wall in Thye cabin. She sailed long enough on Wildlife to become engaged to Thye. They plan to marry June 18 on the boat, which will be tied up near West Point, N.Y.

It will be a beginning for them, and to some extent for Thye, who plans television and other exhibitions of the pictures and video taken on the voyage.